


I Have Seen Your Heart

by FloreatCastellum



Series: Missing Hogwarts Moments [29]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Book 7: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, F/M, Horcrux Hunting, Horcruxes, Missing Scene, POV Ron Weasley, Ron's Return
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-05
Updated: 2019-09-05
Packaged: 2020-10-10 18:36:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,639
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20532689
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FloreatCastellum/pseuds/FloreatCastellum
Summary: Ron has been stumbling around the forest for hours, desperately searching for the friends he stupidly left behind. Then, out of the gloom, he sees a shining Patronus walking through the trees.





	I Have Seen Your Heart

It was not that he had given up hope; far from it. Despite the cold and the dampness the snow left around his legs and the horribly familiar, shaking pangs of hunger, he was not going to give up and return to Shell Cottage. He had been stumbling around the forest for hours and hours - the darkness was becoming overwhelming, even the Deluminator would not be able to help break through it for much longer. He would have to find some patch of ground not blanketed in snow, in the hollow of a tree perhaps, and try to get another miserable night’s sleep. They were close, he knew they were, and surely one of them would have to venture beyond their protective enchantments eventually, to try and search for more food in this frozen landscape. But he was starting to wonder if he would die out here searching for them - endlessly circling circling them, just out of reach, until he froze or starved or stumbled into Snatchers again.

And he would do it, he thought stubbornly. He would die searching for her. For them. But especially for her. Perhaps one day they would apparate away, unknowing that his body lay metres away from where they had been so cleverly hiding. Or perhaps, he thought, hunger and longing fuelling the melodrama, they would step out of the spells to pack up, and suddenly they would spot him, a splodge of ginger against the white snow. He might be dead, but at least she would know that he had tried to come back, and he reckoned he had a better chance of her forgiving him if he was a quiet corpse that couldn’t argue back. That was a pretty romantic gesture, wasn’t it? Dying in an effort to get back to the woman you loved. And Harry.

But then he saw it. Glistening and shimmering through the trees - glowing even amongst the pure white snow. A deer, but white and ethereal - a Patronus, and there, a few feet behind…

Harry. 

Even thinner, even more unshaven, his hair even more wild, but definitely, completely Harry. He followed his patronus as though hypnotised by it; there was something eerie and peaceful and slightly disturbing about the way he followed it through the dark trees. Ron could see no reason for him to cast a Patronus - the frosty chill in the air was undoubtedly related to the weather, not to some lurking Dementor nearby - and there was something different about it too. 

The Patronus stopped, and Harry seemed to suddenly rush forward, before it flickered and died. The sudden absence of the light of it made Ron blink as he adjusted to the darkness, but he could still see Harry’s thin silhouette, standing silent and still.

Ron was so painfully relieved to see him, so desperate to run out there, fall to his knees and beg for forgiveness, but something kept him rooted to the spot, and as Harry raised his wand and cast lumos, Ron instinctively darted behind a tree. 

He was not sure why he hid. For so long he had been desperate to see them, and now that he was here the shame and the guilt and the fear of rejection consumed him again. He closed his eyes, trying not to breathe too heavily, running through the apology he had planned, gearing himself up to face Harry’s dismissive rage again, and Hermione’s disgust. 

By the time he opened his eyes and turned again, Harry was circling the pond, frowning into its glittering surface, perhaps looking for fish. 

Muppet, Ron thought, no fish is going to be living in a frozen, stagnant pond out in the middle of the woods. A horrible thought occurred to him that perhaps they had resorted to eating frogs or whatever else lived in ponds. 

This revolting and dreadful thought was still not enough to stop him from doing what he was planning to do, and he was about to step out from behind the tree and call Harry’s name, when Harry did something utterly bizarre. 

Ron watched as he tilted his head back, and even from this distance and in this darkness he could see the coil of breath in the cold air from his miserable, resigned sigh. Then he began to pull off his jumper, and the layers of shirts - he was stripping himself of all his clothes, piling them neatly on the snow. 

He wasn’t sure when it had happened, but Ron realised his face was creased in utter bewilderment. It would be odd, now, to reveal himself, while Harry was undoing his jeans and hunching his bare shoulders in the cold, but Ron just couldn’t fathom what on earth he was doing. 

He felt a lurch of fear as he saw the locket, glinting gold against Harry’s pale, shivering skin, but though Harry took the mokeskin from around his neck and left that on his pile of clothes, he did not touch the cold, shining chain that carried a fragment of a soul. He couldn’t believe they were still wearing it around their necks, that evil thing, and he was astounded that Harry was stripping himself of seemingly everything but the bloody thing. He felt a strong urge to yell at him and tell him to take it off.

But then Ron heard the eerie, muffled crack as Harry split the ice before him, put the wand down on his pile of clothes, and stand at the edge in just his boxers, taking deep, gulping, shivering breaths. 

Oh, mate… no… 

He watched as Harry plunged into the icy water. 

‘Mental case,’ Ron whispered to himself, watch aghast as Harry’s head, only just visible from this angle, gasped and spluttered, a slight yelp of pain echoing through the forest. He seemed to tread water for a few seconds, and then he vanished beneath the surface. 

Seconds passed, and in the heavy winter silence there was only a slight slosh of the water, the surface of the pond disrupted from movement below. 

Harry did not resurface. 

He’s trying to kill himself, Ron thought with dawning horror. The locket’s making him do it.

He raced forwards, a terrible, frantic desperation fueling him; he thought he saw movement in the trees, but he only brieflicked his eyes towards to, so fixed was he on reaching Harry before he drowned himself. 

He reached the pond, and even though the surface was distorted the water was quite clear; he could see Harry struggling, legs kicking and hands grappling at his own throat as he thrashed about, and below him, something shining and metallic, with ruby red stones winking at him through the water. 

He didn’t even need to think - he threw himself into the water after him.

He had no idea that simply being cold could cause so much pain. The shock of it made his body rigid, his brain reverted into an animalistic response, screaming at him to get out; the confusion of the water as both he and Harry struggled meant that he couldn’t see what was going on or which way was up, even though the light from Harry’s wand was still illuminating the water in that soft, mysterious blue. 

His flailing hand pushed against the heavy water instinctively as his body tried to swim and his knuckles hit something hard. Even in the confusing swirl of blue and white water crashing around him, he saw the red eyes twinkling at him again, and he twisted his palm to grasp the hilt of the sword. 

He pulled at it, he felt almost as though it had been sheathed in stone, but it came loose easily, cutting through the water as he pulled it up. He had a moment to breathe as he surfaced, the air somehow seeming even colder, and flung the sword with a clatter onto the hard ground by the pool. 

But Harry was still struggling beneath him, slower now, and heavier seeming. Ron dived again, and it was instinctive again - he wrapped his arms around Harry’s chest and kicked hard against the water. Harry had gone rather limp in his arms, and as he resurfaced, spluttering and gasping once again, he felt Harry’s weight and his own clothes trying to drag him back down. 

Harry’s head was lolling forward onto his chest, and it took more strength than Ron realised he had to clumsily push him out of the water, rolling him over the broken ice and onto the snow. 

He pulled himself out too, trembling violently, feeling almost dizzy from the cold, but though he was coughing and spluttering, Harry’s fingers were only limply fumbling over the chain about his throat, which had twisted tight around his windpipe, and he seemed only able to wheeze faintly, his eyes only slightly open without really seeing, his lips blue. As though it were an animal, as though it knew what it was doing, Ron saw one of the chain links slip over the other, twisting itself even tighter. 

He stumbled as fast as his shaking, heavy feeling legs could manage and seized the sword, then back to Harry, whose eyes, Ron was horrified to see, were rolling back. 

There was a strangled, choking sort of noise as Ron prised the chain away from Harry’s cold throat, his numb fingers awkwardly holding the sword by the blade to slip the tip underneath. Then he pulled it up, and the chain snapped suddenly - the force of it seemed to cause Harry to fall onto his front, gasping and shuddering face down in the snow. It had also flung the locked several feet away - Ron dragged himself after it, still coughing and panting himself, his drenched clothes heavy and cold. 

He staggered back to Harry’s trembling form, looking down at him in baffled relief. ‘Are - you - mental?’ he demanded. 

Harry’s shuddering gasps continued, but now he shakily rose, swaying and blinking hard at Ron, his pale face in numb shock. He gaped at him. 

‘Why the hell didn’t you take this thing off before you dived?’ Ron thrust out the horrible locket, which swung clumsily between them. But Harry did not look at it - he was staring at Ron, his body still hunched over as he trembled with cold, his lips still slightly blue and his eyes wide, a picture of shock. He reached for his clothes, but he kept his eyes fixed on Ron as he dressed. Ron wished he could put on some dry clothes, he thought he might be warmer if he just took these ones off. 

‘It was y-you?’ Harry said at last, his voice hoarse and still gasping from the cold. 

If he hadn’t been so bloody cold himself, Ron would have sarcastically gestured to the empty forest around them. ‘Well, yeah.’ 

‘Y-you cast that doe?’ 

‘What? No, of course not, I thought it was you doing it!’ 

‘My Patronus is a stag,’ said Harry. 

‘Oh yeah,’ said Ron, as Harry reached for the mokeskin pouch that Ron knew held his most prized possessions. ‘I thought it looked different. No antlers.’ 

Harry pulled on a final jumper, and picked up the wand, and then broached the subject Ron had hoped they could skip all together. ‘How come you’re here?’

His breath hitching in his throat was not relating to the cold. ‘Well, I’ve - you know - I’ve come back. If-’ he swallowed, and coughed awkwardly. ‘You know. You still want me.’ 

Harry’s face was very still - even after all these years Ron still found it hard to read sometimes. He could hear Hermione’s voice in his head, hissing at him to apologise properly, for the things he had said, and for the way he had been, and for leaving at all. But he and Harry had never been like that - it had always been rather wonderful that they could skip all of that sentimental stuff and just get on with it, even when things had been really bad, like the whole Triwizard saga. They both knew what each other meant without either of them having to embarrass themselves or the other, so even now, even though this was perhaps the worst it had ever been, and surely would ever be, Ron found that his rehearsed apology seemed quite ridiculous now. 

But Harry was still staring at him, apparently still not quite believing he was there, and his gaze was so piercing that Ron found himself looking away. He looked down to see he was still holding the sword and the locket. ‘Oh yeah, I got it out - that’s why you jumped in, right?’

‘Yeah,’ said Harry distractedly. ‘But I don’t understand. How did you find us?’ 

Ron was far too cold to get into it now, but when he mentioned seeing movement, Harry rushed over to where he gestured. 

‘Anything there?’ he asked, as Harry returned. 

‘No.’ 

‘So how did the sword get in that pool?’ 

‘Whoever cast the Patronus must have put it there.’ 

They both stared down at it in Ron’s numb hands, ornate and beautiful, no trace of the basilisk blood that had once coated it. It was heavier than Ron had always imagined, and he was surprised, now, that he had managed to pull it out of the water and over his head. 

‘You reckon this is the real one?’ he asked quietly. 

‘One way to find out, isn’t there?’ said Harry grimly. In his hand, Ron felt the chain of the locket jerk as it twitched slightly. Ron looked down at it, revolted and afraid; it had only just occurred to him that it had actively tried to kill Harry, physically moved of its own accord. Far beyond twisting his own thoughts into malevolence, it had revealed a danger of a different sort now. 

‘Come here,’ said Harry, and he led Ron to a large, flat rock, brushing the snow off the surface. He held out his hand, and Ron passed him the locket, and then went to give him the sword, eager to see the fucking thing finally destroyed. 

‘No,’ said Harry, shaking his head gently. ‘You should do it.’ 

‘Me? Why?’ asked Ron. This was very much Harry Potter territory. 

‘Because you got the sword out of the pool. I think it’s supposed to be you,’ said Harry, setting the locket carefully in the middle of the rock. The way he said it reminded Ron of Dumbledore, like he would never understand the complexity of thought behind it even if Harry tried to explain. He simply had to believe and trust him. 

‘I’m going to open it,’ said Harry, as though he were giving a D.A lesson, ‘and you stab it. Straight away, OK? Because whatever’s in there will put up a fight. The bit of Riddle in the diary tried to kill me.’ 

He said it as though the locket hadn’t already tried to kill him, less than ten minutes previously, and the thought that the experience had barely registered as comparable in Harry’s mind to his experience with the diary terrified Ron. ‘How are you going to open it?’ asked Ron, who well remembered the time they had spent in Grimmauld Place all taking turns trying to prise it open. 

‘I’m going to ask it to open, using Parseltongue,’ said Harry calmly. He stepped to the side, slightly, still close to the locket, but out of Ron’s way. Ron could see him focusing on the glittering ‘S’, and knew immediately that he was picturing it as a snake, getting himself ready to do it. 

‘No!’ he blurted out. ‘No, don’t open it, I’m serious!’ 

‘Why not? Let’s get rid of the damn thing, it’s been months-’ 

‘I can’t, Harry, I’m serious - you do it-’ He couldn’t look at it, he felt ridiculous, still holding the sword like he was a kid playing at being a knight. It seemed to taunt him, laying there, sinister as it shone in the midwinter light. He had sworn, sometimes, when he had worn it, that he could hear it whispering, swore that some of the thoughts that had swirled invasively into his head had not been his own, that they had slithered in through his ears or up his nostrils or through his mouth like a snake, wrapping themselves around his brain and squeezing until all he felt was anger and jealousy and rage and self-pity. 

He was too weak - he knew it. Harry had destroyed one of these things at the age of twelve, but Harry had always been more resilient than him - than anyone he knew really. The diary had nearly made his sister attempt murder, and the locket had made him abandon Harry and Hermione in the wilderness. At least Ginny had been a child, had been actively possessed - he had no such excuses. 

‘But why?’ asked Harry. 

‘Because that thing’s bad for me!’ he said, still unable to look at it, and now actively backing away. Above everything that had been terrifying about coming back, more than feeling Harry’s betrayed rage or Hermione’s devastated hurt, had been the prospect of seeing that thing again. ‘I can’t handle it! I’m not making excuses, Harry, for what I was like, but it affects me worse than it affected you and Hermione-’ [em]because I am weak[/em] ‘-it made me think stuff, stuff I was thinking anyway, but it made everything worse, I can’t explain it, and then I’d take it off and I’d get my head on straight and then I’d have to put the fucking thing back on - I can’t do it, Harry!’ 

His words rang out in the air, and he still felt colder than he ever had in his life, shaking his head miserably, humiliated that he was being defeated by a piece of jewelry, even if it was haunted or whatever, when Harry had always just done this sort of thing without ever considering whether it was possible or not. 

‘You can do it, you can!’ insisted Harry. ‘You’ve got the sword, I know it’s supposed to be you who uses it. Please, just get rid of it, Ron.’ 

Ron swallowed, breathing heavily, still freezing down to his very bones and gripped with a steely sort of fear. But there was something specifically about Harry asking him for help, calling for him specifically - that old protectiveness he’d always had over his friend, that need (he was ashamed to say, like his mother), to come to his aid and look after him, because hardly anyone else ever bloody did, it stirred him into agreement. 

It wouldn’t work, but he owed it to Harry to at least try. ‘Tell me when,’ he said hoarsely. 

‘On three,’ said Harry, and Ron turned back to the locket, looking at it hatefully, gripping the hilt of the sword tightly. ‘One… two… three - hasthzaa.’ 

There was a click, and the locket swung open. A pair of dark eyes, smouldering and intense, stared out at them. 

‘Stab,’ ordered Harry, holding the locket steady on the rock. His hands were shaking, but Ron raised the heavy sword, poising the sharp blade over the eyes, now swivelling madly, and Ron was about to bring it down, was just making sure he wouldn’t catch Harry’s hand, when a cruel, hissing, echoing voice rose. 

‘I have seen your heart, and it is mine.’ 

‘Don’t listen to it!’ came Harry’s harsh voice. ‘Stab it!’ 

But Ron felt hypnotised. ‘I have seen your dreams, Ronald Weasley, and I have seen your fears. All you desire is possible, but all that you dread is also possible…’ 

Ron couldn’t help it, he could vaguely hear Harry shouting, but Ron was still captivated by the eyes, and in his head burst images as the voice spoke to him. 

‘Least loved, always, by a mother who craved a daughter…’ 

He was a small boy, desperately trying to get his mother’s attention to show her the picture he had drawn, but she was fussing over the new baby, crying loudly, while her many other sons wreaked havoc in the kitchen. Endless second hand clothes. Ginny got new ones, because she was a girl. She would taunt him, sometimes, when they were really small and their bickering became vicious - ‘I’m the favourite! Mummy had to have six boys before she got me!’

‘Least loved, now, by the girl who prefers your friend…’ 

He was in Grimmauld Place, and Harry hadn’t arrived yet, and he was trying to enjoy time with Hermione, trying to tempt her into a game of chess, but all she kept doing was sighing and chewing on her lip and saying how worried she was about Harry and how lonely he must be… And now it was just over a year later and she was sat calmly telling Harry he was ‘fanciable’ and ‘tall’, and all she could do was throw Ron a look of thinly disguised disgust.

‘Second best, always, eternally overshadowed…’ 

No Slug Club invites for him, no Quidditch glory when Harry was swooping about with natural born talent - even when Harry wasn’t there, his baby sister was the one dazzling them all. Doing his Prefect duties and checking on some younger students on the train, and feeling a momentary bubble of pleasure when one of them knew who he was, only to have it burst when they begged him to introduce her to Harry Potter. Everywhere they went, whispers and stares - it didn’t matter if it was scathing or approving, it was simply constant, always focused on the boy next to him. Ron was always just at the edge of the spotlight - enough to be blinded, but never to be noticed. 

‘Ron!’ he heard Harry bellow, ‘stab it now!’

Ron knew he had to, he had to stop it, he had to stop the thoughts. He raised the sword higher, ready to plunge it down, but the eyes flashed red, the same disturbing scarlet eyes he had seen the night they had flown out of Surrey…

From the windows of the locket, two distorted heads bloomed, rising up and causing Ron to yelp in shock, stumbling backwards as strange versions of Harry and Hermione swayed before him, anchored to the locket. 

The Harry that had come from the locket was more handsome, more heroic looking, more self-assured. He sneered at Ron, arrogant and amused. ‘Why return?’ he scoffed. ‘We were better without you, happier without you, glad of your absence…’ 

Ron could imagine it, could imagine Harry cheering Hermione up, the pair of them laughing about him together, making fun of him - perhaps it might have started as a way for them not to miss him, but then perhaps it might have become… 

‘...we laughed at your stupidity-’ 

He was always slowest on the uptake - he didn’t have that wealth of knowledge and quick mind of Hermione’s, he didn’t have Harry’s gut instinct and leaps of logic, he didn’t have Fred and George’s creativity and innovation, nor did he have Ginny’s sharp wit and clever mimickry, nor Percy’s discipline, nor Charlie’s passion, nor Bill’s talent-

‘-your cowardice-’

Hermione snickering at him when she realised he was afraid of spiders, the way he had shaken and had nightmares when Harry had told him what had happened in the graveyard, even though he wasn’t the one who’d been through it, the nerves and terror and queasiness at the thought of stepping out onto the Quidditch pitch in front of hundreds of people- 

‘-your presumption-’

‘Presumption!’ repeated the Hermione from the locket, laughing as she did. Ron’s eyes snapped to her. She was staggeringly beautiful and horrifying at the same time, unsettling, because it wasn’t really her, it was some strange, exaggerated impersonation of her… But all the same, he was transfixed by her beauty and he thought his heart might scream out in pain. 

‘Who could look at you, who would ever look at you, beside Harry Potter?’

She would always choose Harry over him… she always had, she always would…

‘What have you done, compared with the Chosen One?’ 

He couldn’t even save his own sister… Harry had done that, even though Ron had meant to bring Harry with him, not the other way around… 

‘What are you, compared with the Boy Who Lived?’ 

There was yelling from somewhere, but Ron was deaf to it, he was fixated on the terrible figures before him, looming over, evil and malicious and laughing cruelly. 

‘Your mother confessed that she would have preferred me as a son, would be glad to exchange…’ 

The way Harry’s eyes had shone whenever Mum had hugged him had never seemed threatening to him before, but now all he could think about was how much kinder Mum was to him, how it had been he, Fred and George that had been shouted at for stealing the car, he that had got the Howler in response, but not Harry - Harry was to be hugged and spoken to sweetly and fed up and looked out for, Mum constantly fretting and asking after him in her letters, reminding Ron to invite him for the holidays-

‘Who wouldn’t prefer him?’ said Hermione. ‘What woman would take you? You are nothing, nothing, nothing to him,’ she said, her voice low and seductive. 

And then she was kissing Harry, and Ron’s heart was being ripped out as they embraced tightly, their bodies writhing, Harry’s hand firm against Hermione’s sharp jaw-

‘Do it, Ron!’ 

Harry’s voice pierced the air, and Ron looked at him. The locket had been with them this whole time, in Ron’s absence, the passionate kissing occuring before him might have really happened, Hermione might really have frantically unbuttoned Harry’s shirt and pushed it off his shoulders, broader and stronger than they really were. A hatred unlike any he had ever known boiled inside him, roared like a thousand fires, engulfing his agonised heart as he stared at Harry’s panicked green eyes. 

‘Ron?’ 

With all his fury and heartache, he plunged the sword down to stab at the thing that had caused it all, all of this, that had torn him away from Hermione so that she could see how worthless he was. 

There was a long, shrieking scream. The locket lay smouldering on the rock, the terrible images of Harry and Hermione gone. The real Harry had flung himself out of the way of the blade. 

Ron was left standing, panting, unable to get the final images out of his mind. Utter misery brought tears to his eyes, a physical pain gripping him as he thought of Hermione, and how much he longed for her. 

He dropped the sword, heard the clatter echo in the now quiet forest, and dropped to his knees, trying to hold back the sobs that seemed to shake him. He thought of her, the way she frowned and pursed her lips as she read, the way she just always knew the answer, and if she didn’t, that wonderful determination to find out. Her hair as wild and untamable as her personality, she was a force to be reckoned with, ruthless when she wanted to be, and no matter how much he thought he knew her, she always surprised him, always had something knew to disarm him with. She captivated him. All he wanted, the most desperate, deepest desire of his heart, past all that rubbish about Quidditch glory or accolades or recognition, was to be able to be by her side, every day. He wanted to argue and bicker, he wanted to whisper about their concerns and fears or latest tactic to co-parent Harry together over chess or in the drawing room of Grimmauld Place, he wanted to be able to make her clutch her stomach in hysterical giggles and he wanted to be lectured for ages on whatever boring topic she was obsessed with now, because he could listen to her talk about boring stuff for hours, because it was such a joy to see her so passionate, so clever.

He loved her. Completely. Eternally. All the poetic words a smarter man might have been able to think up. 

And she hated him. He had abandoned her. And she had probably never felt the same way about him anyway. Not even a little bit. 

He felt Harry’s hand on his shoulder. The hatred for him that had flashed previously was now gone; he could never hate Harry. 

He heard his low voice, tentative but reassuring. ‘After you left, she cried for a week. Probably longer, only she didn’t want me to see. There were loads of nights when we never even spoke to each other. With you gone…’ 

Ron tried to imagine it, the pair of them sitting in silence, looking in different directions, on opposite sides of the tent. If it had been him, if Hermione had really been upset, he would have reached out to comfort her… But as soon as he thought that, trying to imagine Harry doing so was absurd. 

‘She’s like my sister,’ Harry continued, his voice quiet and low. ‘I love her like a sister and I reckon she feels the same way about me. It’s always been like that. I thought you knew.’ 

Almost spitefully, he thought about all of the smiles and exchanged looks he had seen between the pair of them, all the ones he had played over and over again in his mind, searching them for secret meanings or lustful longing. But then as he did so, it became clearer and clearer to him that they were no different to the smiles and exchanged glances Harry gave to Ron. They were certainly different to the way Harry and Ginny had interacted, and different to the way Hermione had looked at Krum when they had danced together at the Yule Ball. 

He heard the Riddle-Hermione laugh presumption at him again, and he looked even further away from Harry, unable to stop himself sniffing loudly as he tried to stop his childish crying. He had convinced himself of it all, invented it, all to defend himself against the far more terrifying thought that he was in love with her, and that she might, on some level, love him back. 

He felt Harry squeeze his shoulder and rise, then walk away. As he returned a few seconds later, Ron rose, determined to look him in the face like a man, to stop being so pathetic on the floor. 

‘I’m sorry. I’m sorry I left. I know I was a - a -’

He looked around helplessly. Hermione would know the right words to say, she would find the vocabulary to communicate how sorry he was, how much he regretted what he had done. 

Harry looked faintly amused. ‘You’ve sort of made up for it tonight. Getting the sword. Finishing off the Horcrux. Saving my life.’

Ron was almost amused too, because he simply imagined two Harrys doing it all, in a much more glamorous way. ‘That makes me sound a lot cooler than I was,’ he mumbled. 

‘Stuff like that always sounds cooler than it was,’ said Harry. ‘I’ve been trying to tell you that for years.’ 

They had always understood one another, but perhaps never so completely. They had never been the kind of friends that were particularly physical with one another either, but together they stepped forward and hugged. He had missed Harry so very much; his thoughts had been almost entirely fixated on Hermione, but now that he was here, and Harry had forgiven him, he realised that so much of his loneliness and pining had been for his best friend too, who he loved, in a different way, but almost as strongly. 

‘And now all we’ve got to do,’ said Harry, with characteristic wryness as they broke apart, ‘is find the tent again.’ 

‘You - you came from that direction,’ said Ron hoarsely, gesturing. Harry hoisted Ron’s rucksack higher onto his shoulder, and they set off into the snow. 

‘Ah, yes,’ said Harry. ‘This looks familiar.’ 

Surely it couldn’t have done, because it was entirely dark, but Ron trusted him all the same. Sure enough, they found Harry’s old footprints, and followed them. 

‘Look,’ said Ron, ‘about me and Hermione-’

‘Good grief, Ron, I know you’re in love with her,’ said Harry, exasperated. 

‘You do?’ 

He never realised he had missed Harry’s withering side eye, but he had, and he was glad to see it again. 

‘And I do know,’ Ron emphasised, glad the darkness might be hiding his ears turning red with embarrassment, ‘I do know that there’s nothing between you and h-’

‘Ah, don’t,’ said Harry quickly, looking distinctly uncomfortable. ‘Please. Don’t even put it in my mind. Seeing Riddle’s interpretation was traumatising enough.’ 

Ron grinned at him. ‘Yeah, I… didn’t realise he was such a perv.’ 

Harry grinned too. ‘He just gets worse and worse, doesn’t he?’ 

Soon, Ron had the distinct feeling he had left something back at the pool, and he tried to turn to get it, but Harry placed a firm hand on his back and pushed him along. Soon, through the strangely glowing darkness of the snowy forest, Ron spotted a strip of light and the dark triangle of the tent. 

He felt nerves bubble up again, and he fell back a little as Harry hurried eagerly forward, slipping through the entrance calling for Hermione. Please, he thought desperately, though he was not entirely sure what he was hoping for. Please… 

The tent was the same as he always remembered it, Hermione’s clever blue flames in a bowl on the floor, she wrapped in several layers of blankets, stirring sleepily as Harry called her. Ron lingered back, still sodden but thankfully slightly warmer, gripping tightly onto the handle of the sword to stop himself from shaking. 

‘Hermione!’ 

‘What’s wrong?’ she asked, looking panicked as she pushed her wild hair out of her face. ‘Harry? Are you all right?’ 

‘It’s OK, everything’s fine,’ Harry told her, still sounding, to Ron, uncommonly excited, ‘more than fine. I’m great. There’s someone here.’

‘What do you mean? Who-?’

She spotted him, her large, dark brown eyes widening, her full lips parting slightly. He found he was breathing heavily, so overwhelmed to see her again. She rose, and he saw it as though the tent was suddenly glowing with warm light, the blankets slipping off her as she stepped, slowly towards him. 

He had expected her to flash with anger, to snarl, perhaps to cry, or even turn away and say she didn’t want to see him again. But here she was, coming softly towards him, her eyes filled with something tender and wonderful. He found his lips twitching into a slight smile, he raised his arms hoping to embrace her… 

The flash of anger he had been expecting came and she launched herself at him, punching every bit of him she could find with admirable force. 

‘Ouch - ow - gerroff!’ he said, trying to wriggle out of her way, ducking his head beneath his raised arm. ‘What the-?’

‘You - complete - arse - Ronald - Weasley!’ 

He backed away, still trying to shield his head from her righteous anger, feeling at once that he very much deserved this and that he was lucky Harry hadn’t done the same the second he’d seen him, but also rather irritated that she hadn’t fallen into his arms with gratitude that he was back.

‘You - crawl - back - here - after - weeks - and -weeks - [em]oh, where’s my wand?[/em]’

The furious snarl in her voice was like some kind of wild cat; it was little wonder that Harry, who Ron had forgotten was even there, looked so alarmed as she advanced upon him too. 

‘Protego!’ he blurted out, and Hermione was knocked forcefully to the ground. She still seemed to crackle with fury, and as she spat her wild hair out of her mouth and sprang back up, Ron thought that Harry probably would have been better off just giving her the wand. 

‘Hermione, calm-,’ said Harry, stupidly. 

‘I will not calm down!’ she screeched at him, jabbing a finger so furiously in his direction that it made tendrils of her hair bounce. ‘Give me back my wand! Give it back to me!’ 

‘Hermione, will you please-’

‘Don’t you tell me what to do, Harry Potter!’ she bellowed at him, rather reminding Ron of his own mother. Harry looked unusually frightened. ‘Don’t you dare! Give it back to me - and YOU!’

She turned and pointed her finger at Ron, who expected to see a jet of green shooting out the end, aiming directly for his face. He took several steps backwards, raising his hands slightly in surrender and tilting his head. 

‘I came running after you! I called you! I begged you to come back!’

‘I know,’ he said, trying to force as much self-awareness and humility and remorse into his voice as possible. ‘Hermione, I’m sorry, I’m really-’

‘Oh, you’re sorry!’ 

She laughed - it was not the cold, cruel, mocking laugh that the Riddle-Hermione had done, but an uncontrolled, ridiculous, hysterical sort of one - an excess of emotion spilling out like a burst pipe. Ron looked over at Harry, hoping he would say something and Hermione would shout at him instead again, but he still looked out of his depth. He grimaced and gave a helpless little shrug at him. 

‘You come back after weeks - weeks - and you think it’s all going to be all right if you just say sorry?’

‘Well, what else can I say?’ Ron shouted back. He was not going to back down now - he was not going to let her send him away after he had fought so hard to get back to her, not without a fight. 

‘Oh, I don’t know, rack your brains, Ron,’ she shouted icily. ‘That should only take a couple of seconds!’ 

The insult did not bother Ron, who considered it a good sign that she was no longer punching him, but Harry looked more aghast than ever. ‘Hermione,’ he said in low voice, ‘he just saved my-’

‘I don’t care!’ she bellowed at him. ‘I don’t care what he’s done! Weeks and weeks, we could have been dead for all he knew!’ 

And so Ron began his battle. Trying to explain, trying to defend himself, but without appearing as though he were making excuses or accusing them. As he tried, Hermione threw herself down into a chair, pouting and occasionally interjecting with snarling comments, but all in all Ron could see her calming. He even thought, perhaps, that she might be taking steps towards forgiveness. 

She wasn’t like Harry. She wasn’t like anyone he knew. She always did everything so thoroughly, thought about things so carefully, all those little details and nuances that others missed. Of course it would take longer to win her back, of course it would be more of a challenge, because she was truly worth the effort. 

Naturally he’d have been overjoyed if she had been so swept off her feet by his return that she had kissed him, but he loved her so much that right now he was happy to be merely tolerated. 

When she had had enough of his explanations, she wrenched herself from the chair and threw herself back into her bed, pulling the covers over her so violently he might have thought that they had personally offended her too. 

‘About the best you could have hoped for, I think,’ murmured Harry as Ron handed him his spare wand. 

‘Yeah,’ he said, feeling relieved. ‘Could’ve been worse. Remember those birds she set on me?’ 

‘I still haven’t ruled it out,’ said Hermione’s cold voice loudly. 

With a slight glance at each other, Ron and Harry hastily stopped muttering and moved away. Ron reached into his rucksack to pull out his rucksack. 

She hadn’t forced him away. She had eventually settled enough to listen. There was hope yet.


End file.
